27 of the 28 communities involved in the Joint Investigation Visit (JIV) of the April 15 Trans-Ramos Pipeline Spillage in Odimodi, Burutu local government area, Delta State have called for the cancellation of the JIV report.

In a petition to the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDREA), the communities said the cancellation of the exercise was inevitable for allegedly being shut out of the spill mitigation responsibility by Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, the alleged polluter, and in signing of the report of the JIV in which they partook.

Shell had maintained that it was not its place to join issues with any party, but it would abide by directive of regulators, including NOSDRA as the arbiter, based on the findings of the JIV report.

The petition signed by Presley Angiama, spokesman for the “ 27 PollutedBut Excluded Communities”, said: “We are miffed that we partook in the JIV with regulators and SPDC to all four separate spill points, but when it came to signing the JIV report, SPDC chose persons we did not nominate and without disapproval by the NOSDREA staff involved.